An Eclectic Journal of Opinion, History, Poetry and General Bloviating

Friday, February 28, 2014

Remembering Oscar’s Songs

Fist Best Song winner

Well, the big 86th Annual Academy Awards are set for this Sunday, a holy day for movie lovers and the perfect opportunity for the cynics and terminally ironic
to ridicule the spectacle that they can hardly tear their eyes away
from.The usual hoopla is in full bloom
from TV specials to slick magazine spreads and endless promotions on the
plethora of entertainment news shows.

Most of the attention, of course, focuses
on the expanded nine film Best Picture field
that contains the docu-comedy American Hustle (virtually no chance
since comedies are not considered prestige and win less often westerns);the really serious, important film of the
year 12
Years a Slave which has prestige written all over it;a damn fine adventure yarn with political
overtones, Captain Phillips (too much a popcorn favorite);The
Wolf of Wall Street this year’s Scorsese
snub; Philomena an extremely
earnest film with a distinguished British
star (a category Academy voters find
hard to resist; Gravity,a dazzling technical achievement
staring a Hollywood darling smashing
typecasting (no space operas however sophisticated need apply); Dallas
Buyer’s Club, a quirky flick that flew under the radar until cashing in
for an armload of Golden Globes; the
even quirkier Nebraska with this year’s Indie
buzz; Her quirky and indie cubed AND a comedy (see snowball’s chance
in hell.)

Yes, it is an interesting race.And look, I just got caught up in the popular
game of handicapping the race.So you
know I’m hooked.Of course there are
lots of other races.And I am curious how
Tom Hanks, Hollywood favorite good
guy with to outstanding performances under his belt, escaped a Best Actor not, even though Captain Phillips made it into the best
picture sweepstakes.

But I don’t want to talk about any
of that this time.After all Best
Picture awards are notorious for missing the real best picture and pinning the
rose on camp spectacle like The Greatest Show on Earth.Don’t get me started.

I want to talk about the Best Song category, which has a much
better, at least until recent years, track record.

The Academy Awardfor Best Song was first awarded in
1934, seven years after the Hollywood festival of self-congratulations first
began.Reading over a list of the winners
for the first several decades is a tour of some of the enduring classics of
popular music.Almost every one became a
standard, one of those songs that are always fresh and open to new performers
and interpretations.Even in years
when another song may have been, in retrospect, more deserving it was only
because of the depth and strength of cinematic tunes.

Since 1989 the award, for better or
worse has been dominated by animated
films, which were often virtually the only musicals being made.Some of those songs were fine, others as
interchangeable as black socks.Some
years the Academy, whose musical tastes were suspected of being “square” would
suddenly embrace something daring, again with mixed results.Some of these songs were also so deeply tied
to the content of the movie that they could have no independent life, no real
chance to become a standard.Who is
going to be covering It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimpin 20 years?

A few years ago Randy Newman, the always-the-bridesmaid, almost-never-the-bride of
the Oscars walked away with the
statuette for We Belong Together from Toy
Story 3.The twenty time nominee
had previously brought home only one award.It sounded exactly like a Randy Newman song—almost any Randy Newman
song.But the competition was even less
memorable.The audience at home was more
apt to be humming the bump music for the commercials than any of the nominees.

Too bad.Here is hoping the movie songs can regain
their former glory.This year there are
two animated entries—this year’s hipster hope Happy from Despicable
Me byPharrell
Williams,
the dude in the big hat who got the Golden globe and the Disney anthem du jour Let It Go.Then there is the wistful, whispered The Moon Song from Her and Ordinary Love from Mandela:
Long Walk to Freedom, the “dysfunctional love song” by Bono and the boys from U2.If
Academy voters run true to form, the Disney ditty gets it.If they are stretching their hip muscles,
then Williams takes it home.Forget The Moon Song—most voters did not stay
awake through it.But I am betting that
the cultural steamroller that is Bono and the reflected glory of Nelson Mandela takes it home.

The
question is will you be singing any of these songs in the shower twenty years
from now?